Raid testing has been disabled on PTR for a few days, it gives us some time to cover the most important points of the last two weeks. There was a few important announcements that I didn't report because of the tons of 2.4 information but I guess it's a good time to do it now.

Season 4 Armor - Slight update
Don't get your hopes too high, there isn't any new item. I just re-did the screenshot on a human player because a few items look nicer on him (and it prevents clipping on helms).Warrior[Brutal Gladiator's Plate Chestpiece], [Brutal Gladiator's Plate Gauntlets], [Brutal Gladiator's Plate Helm], [Brutal Gladiator's Plate Legguards], [Brutal Gladiator's Plate Shoulders]Druid[Brutal Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic], [Brutal Gladiator's Kodohide Tunic], [Brutal Gladiator's Wyrmhide Tunic]Paladin[Brutal Gladiator's Ornamented Chestguard]

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This afternoon gaming luminaries Rob Pardo (Blizzard), Min Kim (Nexon), Ray Muzyka (Bioware), Jack Emmert (Cryptic), and Matt Miller (NCsoft) got together at GDC to exchange their thoughts on the future of the industry. Sister site Massively was there live, no doubt typing furiously in order to catch every crumb of information. Want to know what's going to happen to your favorite game (or games!) in 10 or 20 years? Check out Massively's live coverage.

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World Designer Kisirani has just announced that the Midsummer Fire Festival is now active on the PTR. While the Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air Events have mostly been about the same (aside from the occasional love rocket), it looks like the fire festival got some major additions this year, and they've activated the festival on the PTR a few months early so that they can be previewed and tested. New quests and a seasonal boss not unlike the Headless Horseman in the Slave Pens of Coilfang Reservoir will be awaiting us this summer. The boss seems to be unlocked by a new quest chain that in part has you disguising yourself as a crab in order to spy on Twilight Cultists for the Earthen Ring, which sounds like enough fun in and of itself. You'll also be able to play with fire a bit more including a torch tossing game.

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We've hit on the topic of "classic" servers before, and there are even players already carrying the idea out in game. Not everybody thinks Burning Crusade is the greatest thing since Molten Core, and so there are still quite a few players who wish they could play on servers that didn't go past level 60, where Naxx and AQ were still the main endgame, Bloodfang was the hotness, and Atiesh was more than just a few splinters taped together.

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Originally, there was only one way to obtain Badges of Justice: Heroic bosses. Now there are a couple more: Heroic daily quests as well as raids. Still, there hasn't been a way for the die-hard solo player to get their hands on some badges -- until now. The Shattered Sun Offensive (SSO), the new faction associated with patch 2.4, assigns many daily quests (to help you fill the new 25-dailies-a-day limit). Several of these quests reward you with Shattered Sun Supplies, a box which contains a high-level green item, and also -- coming to my point -- has a chance to contain a Badge of Justice.

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For those of you who have hitting the PTR to attempt WoW's hardest raid yet, the Sunwell Plateau, it's going to be turned off for a little while, until the next PTR patch, which "will be very soon." Updates on the various bosses:

• Kalecgos is close enough, will be finished internally and therefore presumably disabled on the PTR when the Sunwell comes back
  
• Brutallus's stomp will remove burn when he comes back, only for him to be tested briefly and then disabled.
• Felmys and the Eredar Twins will get "major changes"
• Trash (or, in Blizzard's euphemism, "the oh-so-compelling, non-boss mobs") gets "a good deal of tuning" as well


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You wouldn't think something as prosaic as the water that restores our precious blue bars would be undergoing a controversy, but that has certainly happened during the time patch 2.4 has been on the PTR. A change was made such that if you sat down to drink, and drank for less than five seconds, you would receive a reduced benefit -- i.e., less mana. The assumption was that this nerf was made to combat people regenning mana too fast in the Arenas, which led to objections to the change being applied to PvE situations as well.

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Every week, Brian Karasek and David Bowers bring you help, tips and advice for the leveling Hunter in Scattered Shots. For those veterans looking for high end Hunter goodness, BRK is back on active duty.

You probably know by now that Big Red Kitty refers to himself as "we" in all his articles. For the longest time I thought this was just him being silly, but with his return to WoW Insider after a long hiatus, he explained that this is actually a kind of philosophical statement as to the oneness of hunter and pet.

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Sunwell Raid disabled until the next PTR patch

Tigole says a few words about future boss changes in Sunwell Plateau. (src)

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Giant walruses in Blizzard's World of Warcraft? Hell yeah! If you'd care to recall, we recently reported that some Tuskarr models have been found in Patch 2.4. Well, Blizzard has finally confirmed that the Tuskarrs will be making their debut in the game when Wrath of the Lich King goes live.

Members of this kind nomadic race roams the southern coastlines of Northrend guided by carved cyclopian statues that mark their fishing grounds. While some may say that they all look alike, there are factions within the entire race. A tuskarr's tribal affiliation can be easily determined by the sigils inscribed on their tusks.

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On the drinking changes
Quote from Blizzard staffIn Hyjal and Black Morass, if the extra couple hundred mana is going to make or break your run, there is probably another issue that needs to be addressed. From my experience in both of these dungeons you need to be shooting out a lot of heals so healers need to drink for 10+ seconds to prepare as much as possible for the next wave.

We absolutely consider both sides of the game and while this change can be seen as a nerf to players who drank for one tick, it will have a minimal impact on most players and situations

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After last night's PTR build, I am glad to see Blizzard realizes that mage mana issues were not fully solved, but a step in the right direction. The past few patches they have done things to help the situation, and while it does not make mage/healer viable in 2v2, it does help out with going OOM.

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In this, the latest episode of The Guild, not only do we see the aftermath of last episode's surprise visitor (and the result of the babysitting argument), but the worst thing that could possibly happen happens: yes, guild drama finally rears its ugly (and "naked-ed") head. Plus, the episode ends with a shocker that nobody could see coming!

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Slowly and steadily, the official Wrath of the Lich King site is getting fleshed out with some actual information. Today, they added a page about the walrus-inspired Tuskarr, a new neutral race in Northrend. The Tuskarr are nomadic and peaceful, with tribal affiliations inscribed on their tusks. Despite their pacifistic nature, they are frequently attacked by taunka and those pesky murlocs. They are excellent fishers, and catch whales, giant squid, and "unnamed leviathans."

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Dramatized has a simple but intriguing question on the forums: "Is Azeroth flat or round?" It's got to be round, right? You can prove that the world is round a number of different ways, but do they actually work? I don't ever remember seeing ships disappearing beyond the horizon (in fact, Tydeus confirms that ships don't drop below the horizon, so either Azeroth is flat or just really, really big), and in most places on Azeroth, the horizon is actually a mountain range. And I've never seen an eclipse on Azeroth, so we have no idea what shape the world really is. The ingame map between Azeroth and Outland hints that it may be a globe, but really it's just the map overlaid into a circle -- no hints there.

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Some people on the World of Warcraft forums are getting a little down when they noticed that some of the new heroic badge loot items that you can trade in for in the latest 2.4 PTR of the game.

Poster Nextdooramy noted that the new Tempest of Chaos' spell damage reaches into obscenely high numbers (247 to be exact), which makes her wonder if Blizzard isn't being just a little bit unfair about giving away such high-level equipment for a relative easy job of farming heroic badges.

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Tom Chilton, or Kalgan as he's known in the forums, is a very good source of information regarding Blizzard's World of Warcraft. He is the game's lead designer, after all. Well, he was recently spotted on the forums where he announced a few changes coming to the Shaman class.

Chilton pointed out that Shamans will be getting buffs to go along with the nerfs. While this is good news for all who play this class, he pointed out that "there's still quite a bit that hasn't been implemented yet."

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If you tried to log into the Europe World of Warcraft Public Test Realm, you probably already know that the servers are offline. Apparently, the servers are undergoing some maintenance.

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Totem Talk is the column for shamans. Matthew Rossi currently has a level 70 resto shaman amidst the Horde and a level 70 enhancement shaman in the Alliance, and is working on leveling up an elemental shaman. This week did not exactly make him feel good about that decision. Seriously, you're nerfing elemental shamans again? Really? You're not kidding about this?

I really didn't see this coming. Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps I simply don't keep track of these things in a sufficient manner. But if you'd told me that shamans were going to be nerfed again in patch 2.4, I honestly would have laughed. No way, I would have said confidently, there's no way they'll nerf shamans again. Clearly, I underestimated the capacity for nerfing inherent in the shaman class. Now, I've already heard all the responses... that it's a PvP nerf to keep elemental shamans from outputting crazy burst damage. Yes, I've heard tell that Kalgan promises buffs as well as nerfs in 2.4 and that's good. But the bare fact of it is, yet again, a specific shaman spec gets a direct DPS nerf. By themselves, these nerfs aren't any major deal. But when you see a series of them popping up like this, it's extremely disheartening and all the nebulous promises of incoming buffs (with no specifics or concrete details) don't counter the disappointment and in some cases outrage of seeing your talents and abilities become less useful.

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...And associated technology

Or:

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The promised class changes just keep on coming, some of them well received, some of them not so well received. Certainly the dust has far from settled, with Kalgan himself promising that more is to come only this evening, but there's already questions to ask. One that springs to mind seems especially pertinent in light of the upcoming 3v3 Tournament and Rob Pardo's talk about changing PvP into an E-sport: Are the recent class changes focusing on PvP at the cost of PvE? Druids and Shamans seem to be asking this especially, and we'll look at some of their changes after the break.

The Shaman changes have been pretty clearly focused primarily on PvP. The most recent change linked Elemental Mastery and Nature's Swiftness to a 10-second cooldown. This was likely to prevent teams in PvP from using the "2345" burst damage setup, marked in part by an Elemental Shaman using a spell damage trinket's right click, Elemental Mastery, Nature's Swiftness, and Chain Lightning in rapid succession to put out a massive amount of damage that could be difficult for the opposite team to recover from. In addition, the recent nerf dropping the pushback resistance on the Shaman Elemental PvP 4-piece set bonus from 70% to 50% could be seen as part of this as well. This does take away a little bit from Shaman versatility in small group situations, whereas they can't use EM, then use NS for an emergency heal within 10 seconds. Those type of clutch situations aren't very common though (hopefully), so a pure PvE Shaman probably won't see too much disruption from these changes unless they ground PvP armor for the 4-piece bonus so they could cast more Lightning Bolts while soloing. In fact, one could argue that if Shamans are no longer built around dropping an opponent off the bat with a quick burst, this could open the way for future buffs to improve their versatility.

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I'm pretty sure that Chronicle of the Annoying Quest, by Bakasavant Productions, had a plot at one point. However, every episode I watch seems to veer further away from it. With 21 episodes, over two seasons, in the can, you'd think it would be getting somewhere by now.

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Player Shisou of the Mug'thol server was exploring the new 5-man Sunwell instance, the Magisters' Terrace on the PTR. In the room with the first boss, Selin Fireheart, he found this beautiful mural on the wall. He has some speculation on its origin:

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Well Fed Buff serves up tasty dishes to boost your HP, stats and appetite – with that special WoW twist, of course.

True confessions time: I'm a stat foods freak. My priest was one of the first in our guild to make a habit of munching on Sagefish Delight and Golden Fish Sticks, before it became the standard for raiders to show up with stacks of the stuff. I'm the same way IRL – yes, I'm that mom who turns good ol' macaroni and cheese into a stat-boosting frenzy of organic pasta and cheese, vegetables and even salmon. (And yes, the kids love it!)

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A lot of changes and improvements have been noted in the recently updated 2.4.0 PTR patch notes for Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.

However, you might want to take note that there were a few things that were not included in the notes.

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According to player Raithis over at the World of Warcraft Forums, the Paladin's Holy Shock spell at the PTR is experiencing bugs to its damage and heal effects.

Holy Shock, at least when it's working properly, will provide its caster with the ability to hit its intended enemy with direct damage. If cast on an ally, Holy Shock heals.

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Lane is facing a problem I face quite a bit in World of Warcraft, and I bet you have, too: she needs a group but doesn't have one. I don't care how many friends you have or how awesome your guild is, there are just going to be some times in game where you have a quest to do, or you have something that needs to be done, and you don't have four other people to do it with.

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With the first bit of season 4 gear showing up in data mining sessions of the 2.4 patch, there's been some speculation that the season itself might be approaching. However, many people have argued that even if they do implement the gear, season 3 hasn't been around near long enough for it to be time for season 4. Drysc would seem to beg to differ. In a thread on the general forums asking about the start of season 4, Drysc chimed in to say that seasons will tend to match PvE progression, with upgraded PvP sets to match. He said that with the Sunwell Plateau coming out, more PvP gear and a new season were an inevitability. He also mentioned that there's no set length to arena seasons, and that there's also the possibility of a new season with no new gear.

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Well, the Christmas season has come and gone but for the denizens of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, the spirit is still alive. As a matter of fact, the winners have just been revealed for the Winter's Veil Holiday Screenshot contest.

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Ever wonder what it would be like to wear darkness like a cloak? Well, you're in luck. Ubarjabula, World of Warcraft  troll shadow priest of Blizzard's Uther server, recently gave us an idea of what it would be like to do just that with the Around Azeroth screenshot above.

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Around a week ago, we posted an article that talked about a new change to drinking that was introduced in the World of Warcraft PTR. According to that change, the process of drinking water ramps up the longer you drink, meaning people wouldn't be able to perform "burst drinking" anymore to gain mana.

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If you've been keeping track of the patch notes, you'll know that patch 2.4 will be bringing a truckload of changes to the World of Warcraft. One of the changes include the tweaks to the warlock spell, the Ritual of Summoning, and well, some players have found that the spell is bugged on the Public Test Realm (PTR).

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Blizzard's presentation at the Game Developers Conference 2008 was spearheaded by Rob Pardo, the lead designer of World of Warcraft. As you would have guessed, he discussed the formula of creating video games that players will keep coming back to. During his GDC speech which lasted an hour, a lot of interesting tidbits caught our attention.

Countless of companies are trying to venture into the online gaming scene in hopes of establishing a stable user base which will keep pockets loaded with money. What most MMORPGs fail to do is actually feed the hunger of gamers looking for new worlds to explore because of many unfriendly issues. However, Blizzard managed to dominate the market. How?

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